SACRAMENTO, Calif.—According to a report in the CalOSHA Reporter, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) isn't putting all of its "condom" eggs in one basket. While the organization holds press conferences about Los Angeles County and its response to AHF's pet project, Measure B, its minions are working behind the scenes to browbeat the CalOSHA Standards Board into adopting a mandatory condom (and other "barrier protection") rule to be incorporated into the state health code.
Seems that AHF minion, er, consultant Mark Roy McGrath (pictured) has been making monthly trips to wherever the Standards Board is meeting that month to "press the organization's demand that Cal/OSHA adopt protections for adult-film workers, particularly mandatory use of condoms."
While that might not seem particularly newsworthy, what apparently piqued the CalOSHA Reporter's interest was that at the Board's November 21 meeting, McGrath showed up with a package of condoms from one of AHF's condom manufacturing subsidiaries, which McGrath said could be provided free to adult performers—and which he apparently expected the Standards Board members to distribute for him. He said the reason he was providing the condoms was "to alleviate possible concerns about the cost of providing this form of barrier protection." (Of course, that's never been one of the industry's arguments, since free condoms are available from a number of sources, including at some industry-related STD testing facilities.)
In any case, Standards Board Executive Officer Marley Hart, whom the article described as "nonplussed" by the offer, rejected the package, noting that the Board doesn't perform such distributions.
"We'll just put them in a file," she was reported as having said. "You'd be better served by giving them to people who can use them."
